Merrill Lynch (MER) offloaded a bunch of mortgage-related assets at 22 cents on the dollar (or so) to Lone Star.  The blogosphere weighs in.  (NYTimes.com, naked capitalism, Big Picture, Market Movers)

Does this mean other banks have overestimated the value of their CDO assets?  (NYTimes.com, Money & Co.)

Although some $100 billion has been raised in distressed funds to invest in mortgage assets, it still might not be enough to sop up the supply.  (breakingviews/WSJ.com)

Should KKR Private Equity Investors shareholders hold out for a bigger cut?  (Deal Journal)

More big bankruptcies coming to a courthouse near you.  (DealBook)

Expect larger Treasury auctions going forward.  (MarketBeat)

The TSLF is sticking around and getting super-sized in the process.  (Alea, MarketBeat)

Real yields are really low.  They can’t go any lower, can they?  (Capital Spectator)

It looks like we are going to have the short sale restrictions to kick around for quite some time to come. (NakedShorts, DealBreaker.com)

PIMCO is joining the bond ETF fray.  (IndexUniverse.com)

“Going forward, I’d like to see all of the thematic ETFs live up to their nomenclature by avoiding the inclusion of loosely affiliated stocks in their indexes.”  (Morningstar.com)

How alpha eventually becomes commoditized into beta.  (All About Alpha)

Volatility has been the norm since the beginning of the credit crisis.  (Bespoke Investment Group)

Buying stocks during a recession has historically yielded market topping results.  (Morningstar.com)

Sentiment measure, du jour.  Americans are cutting back on their vacation plans.  Which is showing up in the results of casino companies.  (ClusterStock also MarketBeat)

Credit cards are the next credit product to come under scrutiny.  (Odd Numbers)

“If this [housing] bust follows the historical pattern, we will continue to see real price declines for several more years, and the rate of decline will probably slow.” (Calculated RIsk)

You can apply technical analysis to anything these days.  (Daily Options Report)

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